Actions by intersex civil society organisations aim to eliminate unnecessary medical interventions and harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality in line with Council of Europe and United Nations demands.

[21] Specialists at the Intersex Clinic at University College London began to publish evidence in 2001 that indicated the harm that can arise as a result of inappropriate interventions, and advised minimising the use of childhood surgical procedures.

Creighton and others in the UK have found that clitoral surgeries on under-14s have increased since 2006, and "recent publications in the medical literature tend to focus on surgical techniques with no reports on patient experiences".

A BMJ editorial in 2015 stated that parents are unduly influenced by medicalised information, may not realise that they are consenting to experimental treatments, and regret may be high.

[32] The editorial described current surgical interventions as experimental, stating that clinical confidence in constructing "normal" genital anatomies has not been borne out, and that medically credible pathways other than surgery do not yet exist.

[32] A footnote to a House of Commons report on transgender equality in 2016 suggested that intersex medical interventions were matters of the past,[33] and the country denied such practices in statements to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child later the same year.

[34] However, this was belied by data presented to the UN Committee by intersex civil society organisations later in 2016, including National Health Service Hospital Episode Statistics and clinical publications.

[35] In its concluding observations, the Committee expressed concern at "medically unnecessary surgeries and other procedures on intersex children before they are able to provide their informed consent, which often entail irreversible consequences and can cause severe physical and psychological suffering, and the lack of redress and compensation in such cases".

[36] In 2017, the president of the British Association of Paediatric Urologists stated that "irreversible surgery is rarely performed in infancy" with parents fully involved in decision-making.

Such de-selection or selective abortions are incompatible with ethics and human rights standards due to the discrimination perpetrated against intersex people on the basis of their sex characteristics.